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Premiere: Odette unveils a live performance of Trial By Fire, filmed at Melbs' 170 Russell
Recorded at the beginning of the musician's album tour, the live video arrives just as said tour finishes up with its final shows.
Posted By Hayden Davies
3 years ago
Header image by Laura Du Vé.
Released back in February, Odette's second album Herald was an early entrant in becoming one of the year's best and most powerful Australian records. As we learnt in our feature profile on the album's creator, the album is a depiction of both pain and hope, navigating one of Odette's darkest periods - a cumulative struggle with mental health - with a subtle lining of resilience and hope; the latter further solidified through her diagnosis with Borderline Personality Disorder. "The troubling thing [living with BPD] was me getting very self-absorbed, which this record is kind-of a marker of," she told us.
When performed live, however, the rollercoastering emotions of Herald somehow become stronger. The intensity of a song like Foghorn - the song that depicts Odette at her lowest - increases ten-fold, with the cinematic and grand production of the album stripped away to its bare bones, leaving Odette's vocal exposed. We had the opportunity to see the live show over the weekend as Odette's Herald tour came to an eventual close, and can we just say that the next time she comes around, consider Odette's tour a must-see - it's something remarkable.
For those the missed out, however, we've got something special for you. Today, we're psyched to premiere a live take of Trial By Fire, one of Herald's pivotal moments - and a personal favourite of Odette's - recorded right at the start of her tour run, at Melbourne's 170 Russell. Filmed by Peter Hume and Jesse Leaman, the video clip captures the spirit and energy of Odette's craft in live performance, all while solidifying the strengths of her musicianship in itself, and how the textures of a song like Trial By Fire in recording become something entirely different in the live realm.
"This song is a representation of my protective power that I keep with me at all times," Odette says on the song. "Trial By Fire was written to acknowledge and speak aloud my innermost rage towards my family during their times of struggle. In its creation, I wanted to ensure that the lyrics were from the heart and that, sonically, the song was a supportive vessel for the lyrics. Damian and I used a Ravel sample as that was the music I would listen to during times of trial as a young girl and it greatly comforted me when things felt most frightening. The bass and synths are pure power. They're low and thick and strong."
"This song, in all its elements, is representative of my protectiveness of myself. I feel like children who grow up in abuse fantasise about power frequently. Whether it be magic or being really awesome at karate or something else, who knows, it's common for young people, especially young women, to use their imaginations as escapism. This song is the soundtrack to my childhood escapism and is, most importantly, a way for me to expel this specific coping mechanism from my body as I grow and change into a mature woman who doesn't need to escape anymore."
As she directs her attention to the live video, she talks about how it captures the spirit of a live show, after so long without. "The video was filmed at 170 Russell in Melbourne at the start of my Herald tour," she explains. "It feels amazing to be able to share my new music and live show with my audience after not being able to perform all year. In the clip, we tried to capture the energy of being at a live show and the power of sharing live music."
As mentioned, the Herald tour has now come to a close, but next time Odette is nearby, make sure you go to her show - it's something really quite incredible. In the meantime, watch the video for Trial By Fire below:
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